Zen and the art of NaNoWriMo

Three days into November and nearly eight-thousand words done and edited. This is may be a track record for me.

Something is in the air.

If this year’s NaNoWriMo serves to identify only one key personal motivating factor – if there’s a special ingredient X to be had, in other words – I will bottle it for future use, and be thankful.

Fretting over whether or not the book will be any good is not an issue for a NaNo participant. Let the “woo woo” (to paraphrase Pat Cadigan), flow.

I realized today, for example, that I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed writing just for writing’s sake. Having removed every goal except forward progress, the story is writing itself, in some respects, which strikes me as rather zen-like. NaNo is an experiment and so I don’t mind where it leads.

Then there is a sort of visceral pleasure that comes from sharing a goal. Why this would make a difference, I really don’t know, but it does. For example, why didn’t I start my novel last month? Why wait for November? Yet I found myself watching the countdown till 1 November, and looking forward to starting. So, I was responding to the impetus of something outside myself. Personally, I find this a bit disturbing, but there it is.

Increasing the ocean of transcendental wordcount

And I can’t deny that, as it happens, the timing was right. I’ve thought about doing NaNo in previous years but life had too many intrusions. For what it’s worth, now that I’ve started, I’m determined to finish. Procrastination is no longer an issue. I’ll don orange, shave my head and dance around chanting “Na Na Na NaNoWriMo” if it will deliver unto my fingertips a complete novel draft.